Review Summary: Rules
I first heard Napalm Death around 3 years ago, I really liked the sound and energy so I decided to look into them further. A few weeks later I bought
Diatribes and of course
Harmony Corruption. The first thing I noticed about
Harmony Corruption was the production, It sounds very thick and slightly muffled which I didn't like at first but have grown quite fond of over the years. The album also reminded me of
Slayers
Reign In Blood, how the album is solid the whole way though and the whole album feels like one big song, while some might find that repetitive I find it to be brilliant and honestly can not find one dull moment on the entire album. This is the album where Napalm Death started to move away from Grindcore and move over to good old Death Metal, while many fans claimed Napalm Death had "sold out" there was no denying this way a great Napalm Death record and is definitely my favorite one.
One of the reasons I love this album so much are the vocals, the vocalist Mark Greenway (commonly known as "Barney") has deep and powerful voice thanks to his strong Birmingham accent. 19 seconds into the song
Vision Conquest Mark does a deep guttural roar which always puts a smile on my face. I much prefer Marks vocals to those of Nicholas Bullen and Lee Dorian. Marks lyrics on the album are mostly about religion and politics, which is a nice change from traditional gore lyrics.
Another huge plus on this album is the drummer Mick Harris, who many say popularized the blast beat. Micks style is extremely fast double bass and blast beats with the occasional hit on the toms. The drums have a very nice sound on the album with the clicky bass drum and hollow snare. My favorite song for drums is the track
If The Truth Be Known which starts with a pretty straight forward beat but ends up turning into more blastbeat madness.
The guitars don't really stand out on this album, while there are great riffs and solos the guitars sound very muffled and are actually quite quiet most of the time. But as I said there are great riffs from Mitch Harris and Jesse Pintado. Especially on songs like
Malicious Intent and
Suffer The Children, the riff at 2:08 on
Malicious Intent is my favorite on the album.
This is one hell of an album. From the great vocals of Barney and the brilliant drums from Mick,
Harmony Corruption is a great death metal record with a strong lyrical message and fierce instrumentation. If you are a fan of Death Metal or even Grindcore then I highly recommend this album, even over Scum. While most peoples favorite Napalm Death album is Scum, I prefer the vocals, instrumentation and production on
Harmony Corruption and when I'm in the mood to listen to some Napalm Death, I find myself listening to this album every time.
Pros:
No filler
Mark Greenway
Great instrumentation all round
Cons:
Some may find repetitive
Production is slightly muffled
Some may not like the change from Grindcore to Death Metal
Recommended Tracks:
Suffer The Children
If The Truth Be Known
Malicious Intent
Vision Conquest
"Judgment through force
Faith, a fuel for pointless wars"
